Sexual Healing
by ibshafer
Summary: ...the title says it all; a little post-series musing. Vash X Meryl


**Title: **Sexual Healing

**Author:** ibshafer  
**Rating:** R  
**Character/Pairing:** VashXMeryl  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own these people, they own themselves and are just nice enough to let me spin them around the page now and then.  
**Summary:** _The title says it all..._

**Warnings:** suggestive situations, angsty/mushy stuff  
**Genre:** Trigun

**Spoilers:** Yes! Post series, read at yer own risk!  
**Feedback:** _yes, please!_

Sexual Healing

_ibshafer_

She couldn't say how long it had been going on, she was almost embarrassed that she hadn't noticed sooner - she spent so much time looking at his body - but it was definitely happening.

Vash was _healing_.

Not just the recent wounds, those inflicted by his demon brother in that last fated battle, but the dozens of angry red scars that covered the landscape of his still wondrous body.

"_Vash?" _

His skin was warm beneath her chin, against her cheek, and there, there where the tip of her nose was resting, where the tip of her tongue had previously traced a line of old pain over the curve of his shoulder, there was _nothing_.

Nothing but new, pink skin.

The color was the reason she couldn't explain it away as something she hadn't noticed before, some anomaly of his body that would show she didn't know the roadmap of his skin as well as she thought she did.

_It was pink._

Not tanned and golden, not freckled like the rest of him.

But pink.

_New..._

"Hmmm?" he breathed, half-dozing himself. His hand was splayed possessively around the column of her neck, fingers buried in her hair, moving idly there, and he leaned forward the inch that separated them to kiss her temple, a gentle gesture that always made her shiver. _"Gimme_ a minute, okay?" The hand at her hip pinched playfully.

She found herself blushing in _spite _of the nature of their relationship, which had incredibly, _gloriously _turned a corner not long after he'd buried his brother.

"That's not what I meant, fool," she growled, but her smile infected her face, leaching into the air between them, inspiring giggles in him.

For all his years, he was still just a little boy...

Levering herself up for a better vantage point, she ran a fingertip over his shoulder, grinning at the full-body twitch this elicited from him.

"Didn't you used to have a scar here?" She circled the area again, as much to emphasize the question as to repeat the response.

Head cocked to the side, he lifted his elbow, peering with eyebrows raised at the spot she'd indicated.

"Hmmm... What's up with _that?_"

The question belied the tone of his voice.

_He was not surprised._

Sitting up, she scowled down at him. "You mean you already knew?"

She was a little hurt. They'd talked about his scars before, about how he never seemed to heal completely, about how his skin had become, over the years, a kind of recording of the trials and scrapes of his life. He knew each one by name and by year; he _was _the book of his life.

Any change in that, miraculous as it would be, should be discussed, and if not, then it should at least be _mentioned._

Now it was his turn to blush and blush he did, clear down to the exposed roots of his spiked blond hair.

"Heh, heh... Well, um, yeah... it...um, it started after we...y'know..."

Like the proverbial ton of bricks, it hit her.

_After the first time they'd made love._

She pushed herself away, back towards the edge of the bed, though not off of it.

"Are you _kidding _me? For _that _long?" Now she was _more _than a little hurt. "It started when we... when we were..." She shivered, felt sick for a moment."I'm - _what? -_ I'm apparently _healing _you with my...my _body _and...and you didn't think to _say _anything to me?" Suddenly aware of her lack of clothing, she grabbed at the rough wool blanket draped over the footboard, throwing it around her shoulders. _"Vash,_ I can't believe--"

She had been about to berate him for being a self-involved little boy, when that boy, and his mercurial moods, shamed her.

He started to _cry._

"I'm sorry, Meryl. I don't _know _what's happening to me. I-I'm not _human_. I'm a _freak... _I...I was hoping... I was hoping it would _stop." _He slid himself back against the worn wooden headboard and held up his arm. "There used to be a pretty deep one right here," he pointed to his forearm. "And one day I woke up and it was just _gone." _He seemed confused, almost like he _missed _it. It _was _a part of him, after all, of his life history. "I was _afraid _to say anything, afraid if you knew, you'd run." Embarrassed, almost desperate - his emotions were so extreme sometimes - he sought her eyes briefly, then looked away just as quickly. "I thought being with me might be _hurting _you, draining you in some way. I knew I should just _leave, _just get away from you, but...but it felt so good to be treated like a _man _for once, instead of some natural disaster..."

In a heartbeat, she was back at his side, arms around him, rocking him gently, lips at his neck.

"Sssshhh," she crooned, then kissed him full on the mouth. She felt him relax into the kiss, felt his hands slide around her waist to lay flat against the bare skin over her shoulder blades. His arms tightened possessively and he sighed into her neck.

"I would never leave you, Vash." She pulled away, laid hands on his face. "If you haven't figured it out yet, I _love _you, you big idiot."

This brought a quick giddy laugh from him.

"I _am _a big idiot."

Grinning, she kissed him again. "Yeah, but you're _my _idiot."

Green eyes flashed to hers, lips turned up at the corners. Strong arms, both flesh and steel, tightened around her once again. "I've never 'belonged' to anyone before." The smile threatened to run away with his face. "Feels nice."

It was such a relief, not just after today, but after all this time, to see that smile on his face and know he wasn't using it to cover something else. If she was somehow helping him to heal, to regenerate, she was glad of it. She had made a vow, when the fates had brought him back to her, to spend the rest of her life trying to make up for all the pain he'd felt, all the horrible things that had been visited upon him, all the things that had been torn from him, or from others in his name, that she felt her own tears starting to spill. To cover, she spun around and nestled herself into the crook of his arm, settling against his broad chest.

"Do you really think you're...you're _healing _w-when we... we..."

_Be a grown-up, Meryl! Stop being a silly school girl!_

"Do you really think that our..._m-making love _is healing your scars? I mean, has this happened with anyone else?"

He was silent for too long and when she turned to look at his face, she found him red and staring at the ceiling.

"Vash?"

Suddenly his cuticles were extremely interesting.

He found his tongue, but his cuticles still seemed to require close scrutiny.

"...um... that would kind of be hard to say 'cause_... _'cause until I met you..."

He didn't have to finish.

He hadn't trusted another woman not to run screaming when she saw his scars.

But she'd told him a long time ago that _she _wouldn't react that way. She hadn't known how she felt when she said it. She was just glad now that she had.

_So, I was his first..._

If she hadn't known him so well (now), she would never have believed that. When she and Millie had first met him, he'd painted himself the happy letcher. She'd never dreamed it was an act.

"That's okay." She smiled up at him. "I'm just glad you trusted _me _enough."

She leaned down to place a kiss over the crosshatched scar that covered the left side of his chest, curling into his side with a happy sigh. Idly, she wondered if she even wanted them to disappear? Vash's scars were a _part _of him.

She felt him lean forward and kiss the top of her head and she shivered.

_I love him. I really do..._

"Do you think we should talk to your doctor friend? Maybe he can help us figure out why this is happening."

"We could." There was a pause and then she felt his body start to shake.

Was he _laughing_?

"We _could,_ but in the meantime," he giggled, then took a deep breath. His right hand strayed from her arm to cup the swell of her breast, at first gently and then, playfully. "Wanna do some experimenting?"

_Why that little..._

Biting her tongue to stifle her own laughter, she spun around and dug the fingers of both hands into his sides.

"You want to _experiment, _huh?!"

Vash was rolling from side to side now, trying, without luck, to block her invading fingers. His laughter was infectious - and she'd already been half-infected to begin with. She nipped at an earlobe, hands still deep in his belly.

He wasn't too helpless to roll her over onto her back.

"Yeah, I _do_..." Breathless with mirth, he'd still managed to divest her of the blanket and gather her hands above her head. His lips were at her neck and now that he was settled against her, she could feel him _everywhere_. "You got a problem with that?"

"N-no... N-not at all." She gasped as Vash ground his hips against hers. "In fact, _h-hurry..._"

"Yes, _m'am," _he whispered, ever obedient, even _with _the accompanying giggle.

With the blood roaring in her ears, and the feel of his smooth, flawed, _hard _body against her, she let herself be swept away by the force of nature known as the humanoid typhoon.

Together, much later, they sleepily inspected his body for changes.

Finding a new patch of pink skin, she just shook her head, overwhelmed.

"I...I don't get this at all..." Leaning forward, she kissed the spot, pleased when he shivered in response.

"Me, neither." He found another, what _used _to be a small hooked scar under his rib cage, a rock thrown by a young boy, if she remember his stories right, and pointed to it.

Smiling, she bent to kiss this spot, as well.

"W-will you miss them," she asked, poised above his skin, the feel of him still fresh on her lips.

She'd been afraid to ask him this, afraid he _would _miss them, afraid he'd come to see her as the _eraser _of his history, afraid he'd disappear from her life again, some misguided notion in his mind that leaving was the only way for him to keep himself from disappearing _completely_.

She'd been afraid.

But she needn't have been.

"Nah." His face was thoughtful, but his eyes danced. "They're history. The _past." _He grinned at her. "I don't need 'em anymore."

Maybe now he could stop torturing himself.

Without the constant reminders, maybe he could actually let himself be _happy_.

"Would _you _miss them?" His voice was small, as though he were afraid of her answer.

Pulling herself up on her elbows, she inspected his chest.

Over his heart, a particularly deep gouge was reinforced with a cage of wrought iron, riveted right into his skin and the bone beneath. It was a shock of cold against her chest when he held her, but it always warmed quickly enough. The angsty side of her had always seen that little cage as the sign of his heart imprisoned, but now she saw it in a different light; maybe it was keeping it under lock and key for _her_.

"Well..." Her tongue curled against the metal. She placed a lingering kiss there and in spite of the fact that he could _not _have felt it, he shivered as if he had. "Maybe just this one..."

He laughed again, but the tone was husky and his hands were at her back, guiding her upward.

"Don't worry, lady. I'm _your's. _I'm your's..."

She laughed.

He could read her mind when he tried.

Or maybe...maybe she was just too obvious _not _to be read.

Either way, she didn't care...

_fini..._


End file.
